Deadline Extended to April 20th!

We adore former student and scholarship winner Larissa Marantz who now has a thriving kidlit career while supporting her own school OC Art Studio. Larissa and CBA teach in very different ways and often share scholarship and non-private student resources with each other - helping each other's students excel. It's quite beautiful and we are so thrilled to be honoring her by naming this scholarship after her. Please read on further below to learn more about Larissa and her work including her upcoming Graphic Novel and her school!!! We're also thrilled to say that Larissa will be joining us live in the course on one of the days to directly help students with her brilliant teaching and critiquing and contributing a helpful interview.

​About the Scholarships
The Larissa Marantz Merit and Need-Based Graphic Novel Scholarships are open to any WRITER or ILLUSTRATOR who identifies as BIPOC, LGBTQI, Low-Income, having a Disability, is a Children's Librarian or an Aussie (because of the exchange rate and because I'm always homesick). We give as many full and half scholarships as we can afford and would love to give one to you if you meet the criteria and are interested. REMEMBER, LOTS OF WRITERS WHO DON'T ILLUSTRATE ARE BEING PUBLISHED AS ARE ILLUSTRATORS WHO DON'T ILLUSTRATE BUT IN THIS ULTIMATE COURSE WE'LL BE TEACHING YOU BOTH ALTHOUGH YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT NEED TO KNOW HOW TO ILLUSTRATE TO WRITE AND SUBMIT A GRAPHIC NOVEL MANUSCRIPT AND WE HAVE A FANTASTIC PROVEN-TRACK-RECORD OF STUDENTS GETTING PUBLISHED AND WINNING AWARDS! 

Now accepting applications for the
May 9th, 2022 Mastering Graphic Novels Merit Scholarship!  ​
for our highly interactive ULTIMATE online
Mastering Graphic Novels Live
starting May 9th 2022!

MANY of our scholarship recipients are now published or contracted! In fact, the Children's Book Academy has given over 200 scholarships,  and former students have contracted or published over 790 books!!!

Just Fill Out the Easy Peasy Form Below and Woo Us With Your
​Warmth, Writing, Or Illustration!

Please follow these directions: 
Keeping in mind that this scholarship could be a total game-changer for you as it has been for so many, please follow the word count limits so we don't go crazy and we also know that you can follow directions, and check for spelling. Also make yourself look as honestly good as you can. :) The main things we'll be looking at are your story description , and the two "about you" parts (quirky and criteria) as well as how wonderful a member of our community you'll be. Fingers are crossed. We ask for your phone number so we can contact you about the scholarships and in case we are ever in your area and want to meet for fun and a free critique, and the quirky part is because many of our scholarship applicants wrote information that ended up being so much cooler than their original idea, which ended up getting published. Trust me, we want to help as many people as we can, so go for it!

Heads up - if you apply, which we hope that you do, remember to be charming, concise, creative, and describe how you can give back so that you don't come across as just a taker. These instructions can help you in all sorts of things.

This graphic from Lee and Low showcases why we give BIPOC scholarships among others. We want to help support increased diversity in the field, which is why we offer these full and half-priced merit and need-based scholarships to help improve cultural representation in order to reflect the true make-up of the United States both as creators and as main characters in books! Unfortunately, it doesn't take class into account, which is also a social justice issue!
​These scholarships are for the interactive online Mastering Graphic Novels Live CO-TAUGHT BY FOUR EXPERTS!

Easy Peasy Scholarship Criteria

 Applicants need to:

• Fill out the short form
• Be committed to and excited about writing truly exquisite texts for children's books and want to contribute to the field to help make a better world through children's books, whether it's just by creating more delight or by skillfully and subtly integrating social justice themes in your work.

• Commit to participating fully in the course by availing yourself of the course materials and participating in the private Facebook group and help get the word out about this exceptional course.
• Write a brief description of yourself, your background, and why you'd like this scholarship.  We LOVE creative well-written pitches.
• Let us know what you'll be working on in the course
• Let us know if you are already agented, published or have a website
• Share your personality
• Be as brief and appealing as you can

Please share this link https://bit.ly/LarissaM-GNscholarships

 AND HERE'S THE LINK TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE COURSE!!!
JUST CLICK HERE

Meet Larissa Marantz!

Larissa Marantz is a successful past Children's Book Academy student who also owns and teaches at OC Art Studios! She offers virtual lessons for adults and children with wonderful courses and open studio sessions that guide students in the areas in (but not limited to): Drawing, Graphic Novels, Animation, Storyboarding, Portfolio Development and more. 

She is a former animation artist for Nickelodeon's The Rugrats and Rocket Power and has illustrated almost a dozen books for Nickelodeon's licensed properties, including Avatar The Last Airbender. Larissa has taught art and comics to folks at Cartoon Network, Google and LinkedIn, as well as thousands of children, teens and adults all over the world through OC Art Studios. She meditates and practices yoga to keep her monkey mind at bay, enjoys coffee every morning, and loves to journal. Larissa is the illustrator and co-creator of Clyde the Hippo Picture book series, published with Penguin Workshop and is currently illustrating BLAKE LASER, a science fiction graphic novel to be published by HarperCollins about a young girl genius who must save the world from aliens.

While we can't share images from Larissa's upcoming middle grade Graphic Novel, we can tell you why it's important. Blake Laser is a graphic novel that features a young black girl protagonist who must overcome insecurity and self doubt to help save the world from impending doom. It features a biracial family with familiar scenarios of an annoying older brother and parents who misunderstand their daughter. This book is important in that it brings diversity to the bookshelves where the main character must learn to trust her instinct and honor her voice in a time where readers are seeing more marginalized voices being amplified in the world with considerable pushback from those who want to pretend that racism no longer exists. And knowing Larissa, besides being meaningful and beautiful, it will be full of heart and humor as well.
​
Below are some of Larissa's picture books with the Clyde the Hippo books being some of our favorites.

And here's that easy peasy form again. Please share with anyone you know who might be interested!